When individuals watch or listen to prerecorded media content on a television, computer, CD player, etc., such as when viewing a DVD, a videocassette, video on demand (VOD), material recorded on a digital video recorder (DVR), they often skip over portions of the content of the media in which they are not interested.
In connection with digitally recorded media, such as media recorded on a DVR, DVD, CD, or streaming VOD, the media player devices (e.g., CD players, DVD players, DVRs, and network VOD servers) are designed to provide trick modes of operation, such as fast-forward and rewind.
When media is recorded in an analog fashion, such as on an audio or video tape, fast-forwarding, for instance, merely involves moving the tape past the playback heads at a faster speed than normal playback. This will cause the sound and/or video to become highly distorted from the individual's perspective, but still provides enough clarity to decipher the content that is being fast-forwarded through so that the individual can determine when to stop the tape and resume normal playback.
However, in connection with digital media, simply outputting the digital data at a faster rate than during normal playback is not a practical option insofar as the output to the monitoring device would not be perceivable by the individual in any way that would allow the individual to determine the media content that is being fast-forwarded or rewinded through. Rather, the fast-forwarding or rewinding usually requires the use of techniques, commonly termed “trick modes,” to achieve a similar effect from the individual's perspective to that of fast-forwarding or rewinding through an analog tape. More particularly, in order for the functions of fast-forward and rewind to be reasonably user friendly, the user must be provided some feedback from the media enabling the user to discern the media content that is being fast-forwarded or rewinded through. Otherwise, the individual would have no idea when to stop fast-forwarding or rewinding in order to view the content that the individual does wish to view.
Accordingly, in response to selection of a trick-mode, such as fast-forward, super fast-forward, rewind, pause, slow play, etc., digital media playback devices, such as CD players, VCRs, DVD players, and video-on-demand (VOD) servers are designed to enter a trick mode of operation. For instance, for fast-forward operation, the device may selectively output pieces of the content in a humanly perceptible form so as to provide an experience to the individual similar to that of fast-forwarding or rewinding through an analog tape so that the individual can perceive the media content, albeit typically in a very distorted fashion, but sufficiently clearly to obtain a general idea of the content that is being fast-forwarded or rewound through.
For instance, in a simple form, this might comprise displaying still images selected from the content at one second intervals (e.g., I-Frames in an MPEG data stream) for ¼ of a second to provide a fast-forward function at a rate of four times the normal playback speed. The fast-forward speed could be doubled to eight times normal playback by displaying for ¼ second a still image taken at two second intervals or, alternately, by displaying the still image for ⅛th of a second instead of a ⅕th of a second and keeping the interval between images the same at one second.
One of the more common types of content that individuals tend to skip over are commercials or advertisements. Perhaps the most ubiquitous situation in which this occurs is when individuals record television programs on their DVRs and during the viewing of VOD offerings (as are now commonly available on many subscription-based television service networks, e.g., cable television networks, satellite television networks, and fiber optic television networks). Fast-forwarding through commercials and other content, however, also is common in connection with media content recorded on other media, such as videocassettes, DVDs, content recorded onto a hard disk such as the hard disk of a personal computer (PC), and even streaming video over the Internet or other information network.
The phenomenon of fast-forwarding through commercials and other content is most commonly associated with multimedia content, and particularly television content, but certainly occurs with other types of media content, such as audio content, including, recorded radio programs, podcasts, and other audio content recorded on hard drives, solid-state memory, audio cassette tapes, CDs, DVDs, etc.
Since the fees paid by advertisers for the right to place their advertisements within media content are a substantial source of revenue for media content providers, the proclivity of viewers to fast-forward through commercials is a significant problem for advertisers and content providers alike.